The Minnesota Timberwolves are going to sit out another NBA playoff season after last night’s interest-free effort in a loss at Memphis.

It’s been a season of unmet expectations for the team which will have two big questions in the offseason: (1) Should the team trade Kevin Love before he can walk away from Minnesota after next season and (2) is Ricky Rubio the player he was cracked up to be?

Rubio can’t shoot — that much is clear after several seasons in Minnesota. Today, though, the data-driven journalism site FiveThirtyEight suggests that Rubio is as “irreplaceable” as MVP candidate Kevin Love because he ranks second in the NBA in steals per game.

For example, a player who averages 16 points and two steals per game is predicted (assuming all else is equal) to have a similar impact on his team’s success as one who averages 25 points but only one steal. If these players were on different teams and were both injured at the same time, we would expect their teams to have similar decreases in performance (on average).

Steals have considerable intrinsic value. Not only do they kill an opponent’s possession, but a team’s ensuing possession — the one that started with the steal — often leads to fast-break scoring opportunities. But though this explains how a steal can be more valuable than a two-point basket, it doesn’t come close to explaining how we get from that to nine points.

“Love’s observable impact has been only marginally better than Rubio’s,” Morris writes. “So far, both are putting up elite numbers. ”

If Morris’ calculations have weight, it’s even more egregious that a team with two MVP-type players can’t make the playoffs.

About the blogger

Bob Collins has been with Minnesota Public Radio since 1992, emigrating to Minnesota from Massachusetts. He was senior editor of news in the ’90s, ran MPR’s political unit, created the MPR News regional website, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started several blogs, and every day laments that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.

NewsCut is a blog featuring observations about the news. It provides a forum for an online discussion and debate about events that might not typically make the front page. NewsCut posts are not news stories.

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I’ve been to exactly one NBA game – it was the Timberwolves game last year where Rubio returned from his injury. As I recall, he didn’t score much, but he was more fun to watch than the rest of the team combined. That guy was like a squirrel out there – everywhere you looked, there he was – handing the ball off to others on his team who made baskets. I couldn’t tell you if Love was even playing during that game.

I’m no sports fan (it would be tough to over-emphasize my apathy toward sportzballz in general), but that guy is fun to watch. From a business standpoint, I’d think that would make him the most valuable player on the team (assuming the goal of the owners is to sell tickets).

Ralph Crammedin

They never built a team around Kevin Garnett, either. T-wolves management has always been the problem, starting at the top.

Rubio definitely still needs to improve as a shooter, but he’s getting better, according to A Wolf Among Wolves: “Since January 1st, Rubio has played in 37 games. During this time, his shooting percentage is 41.2% and his 3-point percentage is 38.5%.”

That’s definitely an improvement on his overall season numbers of 37.6% and 34.8%.